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BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



HANDBOOK OF THE EARTH. 

Natural Methods in Geography. By Louisa Parsons 
Hopkins, Teacher of Normal Methods in the Swain 
Free School, New Bedford. Price 50 cents. 

An inductive treatise in geography, which is offered 
to the general student as an original and philosophical 
presentation of the subject ; also designed for the use of 
teachers and normal-school classes, as a review and gen- 
eralization of geographical facts, a guide to right methods 
of study, and an application of the principles of psy- 
chology to the art of teaching, which shall educate as 
well as improve the pupil. 



NATURAL-HISTORY PLAYS. 

Dialogues and Recitations for School Exhibitions. By 
Louisa P. Hopkins, author of " Handbook of the 
Earth," etc. Boards. 30 cents; cloth, 50 cents. 

The contents of this book comprise dialogues and 
77iov ement-filays among the bears, the beavers, the 
squirrels, and many other animals, which have been 
successfully used by pupils from seven to twelve years 
of age. 

They are designed for concerts or part-recitation and 
reading, and many of them involve action. The move- 
ment-plays are to be carried out by characteristic mo- 
tions accompanying the text, as may be indicated by the 
teacher, or suggested by the spontaneous action of the 
pupils, in imitation of the natural movements of the ani- 
mals represented, and after the manner of the Kinder- 
garten plays, as prescribed by Frobel. 



HOW SHALL MY CHILD BE TAUGHT? 

A book for mothers and teachers (a year's experi- 
ment). I71 press. 

LEE AND SHEPARD, Publishers, Boston. 



EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 






A TREATISE 



FOR 



PARENTS AND EDUCATORS 



BY 



LOUISA PARSONS HOPKINS 



r JUL 27 1886^ 
Qr v/ashjn®, ■ 




BOSTON 
LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS 

NEW YORK 
CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM 

i386 



Copyright, 

iSS5, 

By LEE AND SHEPARD. 



Educational PsycJtology. 



ELECTKOTYPED AND PRINTED 
BY 

Alfred Mudok & Son, 
24 Frixnklin Street. 



CONTENTS, 



CHAPTER I. 

Page 

Psychology .3 

CHAPTER II. 

Physiological Psychology . . . . .18 

CHAPTER III. 
Sense Perception 33 

CHAPTER IV. 
Memory 44 

CHAPTER V. 
Imagination 56 

CHAPTER VI. 
Judgment and Reason 71 

- 

CHAPTER VII. 

Taste, or the Sense for Beauty ... 84 



PREFACE. 



This treatise is the digest of a course of lectures given 
to the Normal Class of the Swain Free School, New 
Bedford, and is the result of long and attentive observa- 
tion of mental phenomena and development, carefully 
selected reading, and such" original thought and organiz- 
ing power as I could bring to a subject in which, as 
parent and teacher, I have been deeply interested. 

I acknowledge my indebtedness to modern scientific 
writers on the mental and nervous activities, and specifi- 
cally to President Hopkins for the theory of the poten- 
tiality of the body presented in the first chapter. 

The text, although containing all essential data and 
principles, is condensed, and admits of much amplification 
and illustration ; for I conceive it to be an essential feature 
of a good text-book, that it shall leave the field open for 
original thought and observation, and give opportunity 
for free discussion in the class-room, or in the mind of 
the reader. 

A sequent volume is in course of preparation on the 
moral nature, with its activities and relations. 

Louisa Parsons Hopkins. 
June, 1886. 



EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 



CHAPTER I. 

PSYCHOLOGY. 

"O Callias," said Socrates, "if your two sons were foals or calves, there 
would be no difficulty in finding some one to put over them ; we should hire 
a trainer of horses or a farmer who would improve them in their own proper 
virtue and excellence ; but as they are human beings, whom do you think of 
plaaing over them ? " — Plato. 

The teacher must have a knowledge of his mate- 
rial ; he must understand the nature and laws of the 
human mind and body, or he is not prepared to train 
and develop them ; he must be acquainted with all 
that makes up the unity of the human being, if he 
would be able to direct its education ; he must 
have learned the science of the body, which is 
physiology, and the science of the mind and soul, 
which is psychology, or he is in no degree fitted to 
assume the office of teacher. It would be as absurd 
for one to undertake to educate the young with no 
knowledge of physiology or psychology, as for one 



4 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

to attempt to produce a sonata while ignorant of the 
phenomena of sound, and the laws of musical com- 
position and harmony. 

Psychology gives us the knowledge of the nature 
and order of the faculties of the mind and soul ; it 
reveals the laws of activity and growth of the mental 
and moral powers. By many writers it is limited to 
the mind and its activities. It is the science of the 
immortal part of man, and with physiology takes the 
whole man as its subject. It is a descriptive science, 
taking the mental and moral constitution of man as 
the field of its observation. It is founded on the 
introverted subjective observation of the mature 
mind, the analysis of experience, and upon the ob- 
jective observation of the activities and growth of 
childhood. It was studied experimentally in this 
latter way by Pestalozzi and Frcebel, among educa- 
tors ; by metaphysicians it has been studied sub- 
jectively. 

Psychology is closely related to philosophy, logic, 
and metaphysics, but differs from each. Philosophy 
is the science of the forces and laws of the universe, 
material and immaterial. Socrates created an epoch 
in philosophy by directing observation upon man 
himself, making the study of mind its grand object. 



PSYCHOLOGY. 5 

" He gave intuition as its method, self-knowledge as 
its starting point, and moral perfection as its end." 

Metaphysics, so called, as coming naturally after 
physics or the science of matter, is a department of 
philosophy which deals with pure reason and the 
essence of mind, and is most closely allied to psy- 
chology, but wider, more inclusive, and less purely 
descriptive. Logic is the science and art of reason- 
ing, and gives the laws of deduction, teaching us 
to think, reason, and judge correctly. Successive 
schools of philosophy have prevailed since the 
Greeks. Modern philosophy took the place of the 
fantastic ideas of mediaeval philosophy by a vigorous 
observation of mental processes. Francis Bacon, the 
originator of modern methods of scientific research, 
gave us the method of induction, which by observa- 
tion and comparison ascertains the essential condi- 
tions of phenomena, and by experiment discovers 
their laws. This mode substitutes nature and experi- 
ment for conceptions and logic, and is now applied 
to every department of philosophy; by its use a 
science of psychology has been arrived at which is 
sufficiently complete to furnish the teacher with a 
basis for his art. 

The Greeks gave us philosophy, or the love of 



6 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

wisdom, through all their greatest spirits, Pythagoras, 
Socrates, and Plato, the world's educators. They 
also gave us psychology, endowing it with form and 
life by the personification of their mythology, and in 
its very name expressing its symbolic conception. 
Psyche was the latest and fairest of the gods in the 
universal mythology which the Greeks gave to 
humanity ; she embodied an ideal which could spring 
only from an exalted culture and mature habit of 
thought. 

In the modern scientific methods of thought we 
express the subject more analytically. Psychology 
is our knowledge of mind arranged according to laws 
of science. The essence of mind is perhaps un- 
fathomable ; its activities and states are the subject 
of psychology. We assume the existence of mind; 
its exact scope and nature are investigated by 
philosophy. 

Mind includes not only intelligence but feeling, — 
the inner world of man, corresponding to the outer 
world, — which is matter. We believe in our senses 
and therefore we believe in matter, which is a fact of 
variable quantity and quality. It may exist in such 
extreme attenuation as to be confounded in imagina- 
tion with spirit or force, as in the molecules which fill 



PSYCHOLOGY. 7 

the interstellar spaces and convey movements of 
electricity, light, and sound. 

We know little of the tenuity possible to matter. 
The mind is immaterial, but embodied in the material; 
all mental processes are connected with physical 
processes ; the most abstract thought is dependent 
on the activity of the brain. We cannot analyze 
either so thoroughly as to separate them, but we 
must not confound them. Mind is one thing and 
matter another, though, indissolubly connected in the 
human organism, one cannot even begin to act or 
begin to be without the other. The germ of the soul 
must start with and progress with the germ of the 
body ; certainly if one precedes, it should be the soul. 
When does immortal human life begin ? Not an in- 
stant later than the human body begins to organize; 
and we may reasonably assure ourselves that the 
immortal part will survive every catastrophe, how- 
ever premature its occurrence, in the history of a 
human life. Life is sacred, and human life is divine; 
there is no period in its progress less sacred and 
immortal than another. 

All science goes to show that mind and body are 
as closely connected in time as in organism. Physi- 
cal activity and psychical activity are simultaneous, 



8 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

invariably interacting. Sometimes nervous changes 
seem to precede and induce mental phenomena, as in 
impressions by the organs of sense ; in other cases 
mental states seem to precede and cause physical 
processes, as volitions which induce muscular activi- 
ties. There is a great deal of careless and vague 
expression in regard to the activities of mind and 
matter. Physiology describes the material part 
which is necessary to a comprehension of the activi- 
ties of the immaterial part, but must not be con- 
founded with it. The brain is not the mind. 
Thought is not mechanism. The nervous accom- 
paniment of a mental phenomenon does not account 
for that phenomenon, it is only its medium. The 
difference between the two is one of kind. "No 
sound psychology," says Sully, "is possible which 
does not keep in view this fundamental disparity of 
the physical and psychical, and the consequent limits 
of the physiological explanation of mental facts." 

We can all study mind for ourselves. Direct your 
attention to the state of activity of your own mind at 
present, consider its processes, note its stages of 
thought, its methods of activity. This is the sub- 
jective study of mind, and is a necessary preliminary 
to the objective study, since it is only by comparison 



PSYCHOLOGY. 9 

with the consciousness of our own mental phenomena 
that we can observe that of other minds. The in- 
trospection necessary to the subjective study of mind 
presupposes a power of abstraction, and requires a 
certain maturity of thought and judgment. In pro- 
portion as our observation and analysis are complete 
and our discernment clear, so our conclusions are 
valuable. We must study for ourselves and exercise 
original investigation. Psychology is still in a for- 
mative stage as a science ; we can add to its data. 
Leading thinkers and students in this direction invite 
the aid of all who have the power, inclination, and 
opportunity to observe in this realm, and thus con- 
tribute to the sum of the knowledge of mental 
phenomena, that the science of psychology may be 
built up. The teacher has the child-nature constantly 
before him to observe ; he is bound to observe it 
carefully, that he may be able to handle it wisely and 
to meet its needs. It is a great privilege of study as 
well as of work. Frcebel says, " If you want to under- 
stand clearly the regular working of nature, you must 
observe the common wild plants, many of which are 
called weeds ; it is seen more clearly in these than 
in the complexity of cultivated plants." The same 
is true of the study of human nature. The young 



IO EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

child's mind and soul in its instinctive stage, without 
consciousness, concealment, or affectation, shows us 
the method and order of nature better than the 
conscious and perhaps perverted, certainly more 
obscure operations of the more mature mind and 
soul. The child-nature is a mirror of the universal 
and essential processes of thought and feeling, and 
furnishes us with a truer ground-work of knowledge 
than the exclusive study of our own minds. It is 
difficult to study our own minds candidly; we must 
combine the objective with the subjective methods; 
we may explore biography and history, the drama 
and fiction, for a knowledge of mind and soul ; we 
may study the history of different races and different 
grades of life ; we must compare and deduce, thus 
arriving at laws and building up science ; we must 
be exact in our deductions and general in our con- 
clusions, advancing from a knowledge of the indi- 
vidual to the universal. Introspection is necessarily 
retrospection, since we cannot observe a present but 
only a past process. We use it constantly as a refer- 
ence for comparison in studying the minds of others, 
yet we must not project into this study our own 
modes of mental activity as an invariable standard. 
It is hard to understand the feeling or order of 



PSYCHOLOGY. 1 1 

thought of one quite separated from us by time, by 
surroundings, by inheritance, and by motive ; the 
cosmopolitan can do this more easily than the pro- 
vincial. How imperfectly the Puritans understood 
the Oriental mind, imagination, and modes of expres- 
sion ! How inadequately older minds translate the 
thoughts and motives of childhood ! Love and sym- 
pathy are strong factors in a right understanding. 
So nature has supplied mothers before philosophers, 
instinct before reason. Frcebel found liis philosophy 
in the unconscious methods of mothers. The teacher 
must not forget his youth, but be able to refer to it 
retrospectively for his standard of comparison in 
comprehending the mind and motives of youth. He 
must add to this sympathy a knowledge of the condi- 
tions which govern mental and moral actions; he 
must study the nervous or physical connections of 
mind and the physical agencies which affect the ner- 
vous system, and through it modify and influence 
mental and moral phenomena. He will then under- 
stand on what the efficiency of the brain depends ; 
e. g., bodily health, circumstances of rest or exhaus- 
tion, pain or pleasure, moral susceptibilities, and sym- 
pathetic conditions. He must study the psychology 
of knowing and of feeling, and the physiology of 



12 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

nervous activity which is essentially connected with 
it ; for his work is to develop and direct thought, 
feeling, and action during the formative period of 
human life. 

The human mind finds itself in the body as its home 
while on the earth ; this body is its only medium of 
communication with the outward world, and its only 
avenue of knowledge or expression, its only organ of 
activity, and so closely related to it that it is impos- 
sible to discover precisely where physiology ends and 
psychology begins. The body is an essential part 
of the man as we may study him. If we say the 
body is purely physical and material, we mistake, for 
it is not the shifting particles of matter which enter 
into and pass out of its composition from day to day, 
but rather that permanent invisible power and pat- 
tern, that organic whole with which the indwelling 
mind is invested and over which it has more or less 
perfect ascendency, which begins with its birth and 
ends with its death, and defies the last efforts of 
scientific research. Physiology describes its struc- 
ture, its organs, its laws of growth, but cannot define 
its essence or trace its finest processes. Does not 
the mind or spirit peradventure mould the bod)', 
directing its transformations until it becomes the 



PSYCHOLOGY. 1 3 

image and copy of the immaterial mind and soul ? 
At least is there not a constant tendency to perfect 
adaptation of the material to the immaterial in man ? 
Man is a unity of heterogeneous elements arranged 
in an ascending scale, — body, mind, and soul ; each 
new power introduced includes and dominates all 
others ; his organic life is built upon the material 
forces of cohesion, gravitation, and chemical affinity, 
and controls them ; his animal life is an addition of 
new and inclusive force which dominates his physical 
life, and his rational and spiritual life in turn gives 
him dominion over both his physical and animal life. 
Each of these elements subjects all below it, and 
could not have been developed, but must have been 
created, or the fundamental law of cause and effect 
would be violated. 

At every point of transition in nature great care 
is taken to soften the gradation, to merge impercep- 
tibly one form into another and one function into 
another, so that we are often unable to perceive 
the limit on either side, and cannot closely define 
the separation of kind. This misleads many into the 
notion that no new element is introduced as one form 
gives place to a higher, and they are led to think 
that the higher is evolved from the lower without a 



14 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

direct step of transition or creative act ; this would 
be contrary to reason, as the lesser cannot contain 
the greater, nor the imperfect the perfect. Also, the 
phenomena of mind are incompatible with the laws 
of matter, being originative, directive, and self-active, 
while matter has none of these powers ; and although 
some of the physical processes closely resemble the 
mental, as, for example, the automatic and reflex 
action of the nervous system, the adjustment of 
means to ends in all the organs and processes of 
the body, so that it is difficult to say where reflex 
and automatic action end and intelligent volition 
begins, — and although many of the bodily processes 
are inscrutable, as, for example, the assimilation of 
food, the building up of the" bodily tissues, the con- 
nections of the mind with the brain and nerves of 
sensation, and of the will with the nerves of motion, 
— yet we are sure that the mind is wholly different 
and superior to the body, and presents a radically 
new element and type, since it is only through the 
mind that we know the phenomena of matter. Many 
have thought the mind identical with the brain and 
nervous system, which involves the absurdity of giv- 
ing to matter and mechanism thought and conscious- 
ness. The brain is a part of the body and dies with 



PSYCHOLOGY. 1 5 

it ; and although the functions of the mind are af- 
fected by the condition of the brain, yet a study of 
the phenomena of mind teaches us that the brain, as 
well as other parts of the body, is but the tool and 
the servant of the mind, and not an essential part 
of it; the brain is the medium of communication be- 
tween the mind and other parts of the body, and the 
mind's only organ of activity in this life. The busi- 
ness of the mind is to k7iow, and this is pursued by 
consciousness and by the senses. The certainty of 
knowledge obtained by these avenues is assumed 
by reason of our belief in the integrity of the 
Creator, who could not deceive or mislead his 
creatures by the faculties which he has given them, 
or play them false through the only means with 
which they have been endowed for learning the 
truth. We must regard the senses and conscious- 
ness in a sane man as trustworthy ; if they do not 
give us certainty of knowledge, then is there no hope 
of it in this life. The mind has the capacity to know, 
and is provided with the means of knowing; these 
means of knowledge are the occasions for all the 
activities of the mind. The revelations of the senses 
and of internal consciousness cannot be denied; all 
men treat each other as if the belief in them were 



1 6 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

inherent and universal, and any man professing to 
doubt them is said to have lost his reason. The 
revelations of the senses are gradual, and lead us 
to a knowledge of the outward world and of the 
material universe ; those of the consciousness are 
fundamental conceptions, innate ideas, or intuitions 
(a structural part of the mind), necessary to appre- 
hension and thought and to the reception of all 
other knowledge.* The idea of personal identity, of 
being, of space, of time, and of number, are among the 
intuitions of the mind ; we cannot conceive their nega- 
tion. Belief in actuality of being is a condition neces- 
sary to every process of thought, although being in 
its essence is an unsolved mystery ; we do not ap- 
proach its solution by any process of simplification 
through evolution, for its origin and elements are 
beyond our powers of investigation. 

The activities or faculties of the mind may be 
classed, according to their natural order of develop- 

* The intuitions of the mind are regarded by modern psy- 
chology as that thoroughly organized knowledge obtained 
through the experience of many generations, like instinct in 
animals. However they may have become constituent ele- 
ments of the mind, they are now so to the extent of uncon- 
scious and automatic activity, and must be accepted as the 
foundation of all conscious and voluntary mental activity. 



PSYCHOLOGY. I 7 

inent, into sense perception, memory, imagination, 
judgment and reason, and taste. These lead man to 
a knowledge of all science, literature, and art. As 
a step to the consideration of these activities, we 
should study the nervous processes which express 
them, or physiological psychology, which underlies 
all mental phenomena. 



CHAPTER II. 
PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

Physiological psychology starts from the stand- 
point of physiology and investigates the bodily func- 
tions which accompany mental phenomena, seeking 
to discover the correspondence between mental and 
nervous activities. It attempts to explain psychical 
phenomena by those bodily or nervous activities 
which arouse or express them, and which connect the 
mind with the external world through the senses and 
their appropriate sensory nerves, or through the 
motor nerves and their appropriate muscular activ- 
ities. In studying this branch of psychology we 
observe the changes in the nervous organism, and 
notice especially what movements or states of the 
brain accompany the several processes of thought. 

The nervous system is the immediate organ of the 
mind. It consists of the brain, the spinal cord, and 
cerebro-spinal nerves ; also the sympathetic system 
of nerves which maintains the automatic action of 



PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 19 

the organs of respiration, circulation, and digestion. 
All these form parts of a whole, the unity of the sys- 
tem being complete. The nerves and spinal cord 
are merely extensions of the brain tissue. 

Nerve tissue is soft and marrow-like. In the brain 
it appears like a gray, pulpy, undulating coil, with 
silvery white fibres inside the gray ; and in the spinal 
cord, white and silvery outside and gray within. The 
nerves, which extend to every part of the body, appear 
like silvery white threads branching and ramifying 
from the roots, which are sent from the spinal cord 
through lateral holes in the spine, and from the brain 
to the organs of sense through holes in the skull. 
Each nerve has two roots, the motor and the sen- 
sory ; these run side by side and form one silvery 
thread, which also is made of many twisted fibres. 
The two cords are distinct in each nerve and distinct 
in their offices, — one carrying sensations or sensory 
impressions to the brain or spinal cord ; the other 
carrying motor impressions from the brain or spinal 
cord to every part of the body, — so that each nerve 
includes the sensory and motor fibre, which act inde- 
pendently of each other except as they meet in the 
brain or spinal cord. The nerve fibres conduct the 
nervous energy to and from the nerve centres, and 



2 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

connect and unite all parts of the brain in a net- 
work of fibrous tissue. The sensory nerves from all 
parts of the body convey impressions of sensation to 
the brain and spinal cord, which send back by the 
motor nerves the impressions of the will or intellect 
to the muscles. This fibrous tissue connects the 
whole nervous system, and serves at the same time 
to carry nutrition to the nerve centres. The gray 
matter of the nervous system is the seat of intellect- 
ual activities. In the brain it is coiled and convo- 
luted in such a way as to obtain all the surface pos- 
sible within the limits of space. It is so managed as 
to furnish the greatest opportunity for vibrating or 
undulatory motion and complexity of structure. The 
volume ol the brain and the number of convolutions 
are in proportion to the degree of intellectual power. 
In animals the brain is smaller and less convoluted 
than in man ; in men of feeble intellects less than in 
men of great mental power. The degree of intellect- 
ual power seems to depend not alone on the volume 
or size of the brain, but quite as much on the degree 
of complexity of structure. 

The brain is divided into two hemispheres or lobes, 
associated with each other by fibres which unite 
them so intimately that their molecules vibrate in 



PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 21 

unison. The front and upper portion of the brain, 
which is seven eighths of the whole mass, is called 
the cerebrum, and is the centre of all purely intel- 
lectual activities ; its two lobes have each three 
divisions ; the folds or convolutions are separated 
by clefts, sometimes nearly an inch deep. The 
cerebellum is a smaller portion of the brain similar 
in appearance and structure to the cerebrum, lying 
between the spinal cord and the cerebrum ; it seems 
to be the medium of communication between the 
intellectual activities of the cerebrum and the motor 
nerves ; it stores up and condenses the impressions 
received by the sensory nerves, and is the seat of 
the sensory and motor influences ; it furnishes a 
reservoir of energy to every department of the brain, 
incessantly distributing through all its fibrous con- 
nections a continuous current of electric force 
through the nervous system, showing itself in every 
conscious or unconscious nervous act. Some of the 
nerve fibres from the cerebellum pass into the spinal 
cord, connecting the nerve cells of the brain with 
the ganglia of the motor nerves of the spinal cord, 
pursuing a descending and oblique course from 
the brain into opposite regions of the spinal axis. 
This explains the fact that paralysis of one side of 



2 2 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

the brain affects the muscles of the opposite side of 
the body. The medulla oblongata is the thick upper 
part of the spinal cord which it connects with the 
cerebellum ; it contains the nerve centres of the 
physical functions necessary to life ; if injured, death 
follows instantly. The gray substance of the brain 
is one eighth of an inch thick in the cerebrum and 
irregularly distributed outside the white or fibrous 
portion. The coiled gray pulp, on being examined 
by a microscope, exhibits a conglomeration of nerve 
cells, each a unit with nerve fibres, connective tissue, 
and capillaries. The brain cells are pyramidal in 
form but unequal in size, parallel to each other in a 
series of layers, with their summits ail pointing out- 
ward and upward to the surface of the brain, the 
smaller cells nearer the surface, the larger ones 
deeper within, all united by a net-work of nerve 
fibres into which the cells spread out on all sides in 
a delicate radiating fringe which forms the fibrous 
tissue ; the transition from the smaller to the larger 
cells is brought about by insensible gradations. The 
color of the brain cells is an amber yellow, with a 
bright nucleus and white nucleolus of nerve fibre, 
which is plainly seen through the transparent cell, 
and is the unit of the cell, but divisible itself into 



PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 23 

filaments. Nervous action is propagated in vibratory 
undulations from one cell and one point of contact 
to another. The small cells are the seat of the 
phenomena of sensation, the large ones of motor 
influences. 

In the very centre of the brain is an ovoid body of 
reddish color, called the optic thalamus, composed of 
four ganglia of gray matter and two bands of grayish 
substance continuous with the gray matter of the 
spinal cord ; it contains the foci of concentration for 
the activities of the special senses, smell, sight, 
hearing, and touch. The distinct ganglia vary in 
size, according to the development of the separate 
senses ; each ganglion is directly connected with its 
appropriate sense organ by the nerve which conveys 
the sense impression, vibrations being communicated 
from the outward world to the nerve and nerve 
centres by the nice mechanical contrivances of the 
organs of sense. This localization of sensorial 
impressions has been abundantly proved by experi- 
ment on living animals ; also the fact that the size 
and degree of sensibility of these ganglia may deter- 
mine in a great measure the native predisposition of 
any organization. If a certain sense be destroyed, 
its appropriate local brain centre will become in- 



24 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

active and shrivel. These ganglia, either excited or 
deadened, affect correspondingly and immediately 
the sense activity with which they connect. The 
special connection of certain fibres and zones of the 
brain is proved by experiment of a galvanic current 
applied to those portions, producing appropriate 
activities in the extremities of the nerves; e.g., 
electric excitement applied to the optic ganglion will 
cause the eyes to move, and the tongue or neck may 
be made to turn by artificial excitation when there is 
no actual sense impression or volition. Those who 
have lost any of the senses gradually suffer the wast- 
ing of the corresponding ganglia of nerves; those 
who have had a limb amputated eventually lose the 
activity of the motor nerve centres which connected 
with the lost limb ; the disused parts of the brain 
become inactive. 

The spinal cord is a cylinder of soft nerve tissue 
of white and gray matter ; the gray matter is en- 
veloped by the white or fibrous tissue. The sen- 
sory nerves from all parts of the body carry im- 
pressions to the spinal cord, which carries them 
to the brain, and the brain sends back by the motor 
nerves the impressions of the will and intellect to 
the muscles. The different groups of motor nerves 



PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 25 

radiate from different segments of the spinal cord, 
and are regularly laid one above another like a 
series of electric batteries, always ready to start 
into action at the call of the appropriate stimu- 
lus. All nerve activity reacts upon the particular 
structure engaged, modifying it so as to bring about 
a disposition to and facility for that kind of action, 
leaving traces or channels of activity in the structure 
of the nerve substance so as to produce organic 
tendency and automatic activity of sets of associated 
cells. The brain and spinal cord are constantly 
storing up associated sensory impressions, and ac- 
quiring habits of motor impressions which result in 
unconscious movements. The spinal cord is, by 
habit and training, enabled to receive and put forth 
impressions which become automatic motor actions, 
carried on without connection with the brain itself; 
the spinal cord thus acquires a power of its own ; 
this power is called the reflex action of the spinal 
cord, and is shown in walking, dancing, playing the 
piano, and any physical movements at first requiring 
intellectual direction, but which have become uncon- 
scious through habit, being performed without refer- 
ence to the brain. If the spine is broken so that 
the pressure on the spinal cord cuts off the connec- 



26 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

tion between the brain and lower motor nerves, the 
irritation or tickling of the feet will cause the legs 
to kick out without consciousness or volition ; if the 
feet slip, the body immediately tends to recover 
itself ; the fingers involuntarily draw away from heat, 
and man}'- other actions are performed by the reflex 
activity of the spinal cord, this reflex power being 
the result of inheritance or training and a kind of 
memory of the spinal cord. 

The sympathetic nervous system is a double chain 
of nerve knots or ganglia connected by nervous cords 
in front and on each side of the spine ; these cords 
are connected with each other and the sensory roots 
of the spinal nerves by a net-work of gray tissue ; 
from these knots of nervous substance fibres branch 
to all the internal organs, and so distant organs act 
in sympathy with each other, as the head and the 
stomach ; thus, disorder of one function may be 
symptomatic of disease of another organ. The sym- 
pathetic system acts more slowly than the other 
system ; it causes the blush, the contraction and ex- 
pansion of the pupil of the eye, and the accommo- 
dation of specific muscles to the nervous demand. 

The nerves of touch extend to every part of the 
body and receive impressions at their extremities : 



PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 27 

in the fingers they terminate in a fold or plexus which 
is especially sensitive to vibrations. The gustatory 
nerve terminates in the mouth, and has its most sen- 
sitive point in a row of folds or ganglia near the 
base of the tongue. The olfactory nerve is spread 
out on the lining membrane of the nostrils, and re- 
sponds to vibrations caused by odors. The auditory 
nerve reaches the inner ear, where it is acted upon 
by the movements of tiny granules in a liquid, which 
undulates at the touch of the several little bones, 
conveying the vibrations of the drum of the ear 
caused by the percussion of the waves of sound. 
The optic nerve is spread out upon the inside of the 
retina, where it is brought in contact with light. We 
may therefore resolve all the nervous sense activities 
into that of touch. 

When a sensory impression reaches the cerebrum, 
it is intellectualized and changed into a volition, 
which is first developed in the psycho-motor centres 
of the cerebrum, then received in cells of the cere- 
bellum, where it enters into a m»re intimate relation 
with the organic material which is to express it, 
changing at last from an intellectual to a physical 
activity. We can only say of these processes that 
they are inscrutable. The four central ganglia which 



28 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

convey the sensations to the brain, where they are 
met by the mental activity which perceives them, 
and the cells of the cerebellum which transmit the 
intellectual volition to the motor nerves and produce 
physical activity, are the organs which transform 
outward and material impressions to mental and 
immaterial impressions, and again transform the in- 
tellectual volition consequent upon these impressions 
to organic force and material activity. One process 
is the reverse of the other. 

The brain grows in bulk and develops changes of 
structure. Structural development is an increase of 
unlikeness of the several parts or a higher degree 
of differentiation, also a greater intricacy of arrange- 
ment and more complicated special connections. 
The higher structure of the brain, the cerebral 
hemispheres, seem to develop later than the lower 
and have greater complexity. The brain, as an organ 
of the body, would tend to grow with the growth of 
the whole body, and like all the organs, grows and 
develops by exercise. Nerve cells, like -all other 
cells of physical organization, live and act by the 
nutrition furnished by the blood, and are subject to 
alternate rest and activity. Sustained intellectual 
work is accompanied by a loss of phosphorized sub- 



PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 29 

stance on the part of the brain cells in vibration. 
All activity of the nerve tissue as of the muscular 
tissue oxidizes or burns up its substance, so that 
every thought, sensation, and volition destroys a part 
of the substance of the brain ; its essential constit- 
uents are used up ; all moral emotion becomes also 
the occasion of local heat, and wastes its specific 
cell substance. Therefore it is absolutely essential 
to the preservation of the brain that it should be 
sustained by the circulation of nutritious blood, which 
is the result of a proper supply of food. It is by 
the blood that the nerve cells supply their losses ; 
the blood which comes to the brain red, returns 
black, because the needed elements are extracted. 
Every cerebral cell expends phosphorus in acting, 
therefore phosphorized food should be abundantly 
furnished. When the brain is weary, the blood 
which flows to it is less, and the exhausted cerebral 
cells fall into the collapse of sleep, in which condi- 
tion the temperature is reduced. The exposed brain 
of a man showed it to be quiet and smaller in volume 
during sleep, but in dreams swollen and agitated. 
If the blood circulation is suspended in the brain, 
the whole nervous activity is interrupted ; if supplied, 
the activity is renewed. The injection of blood into 



30 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

the severed head of a dog made the signs of life 
come back, so that the eyes turned momentarily at 
the voice of the master. 

The cerebral substance is subject to an increase 
of temperature under sensorial impression. An 
animal has been made to hear, see, smell, or taste 
by applying heat or electric excitation to the ganglia 
of sense nerves. 

Everything that excites the brain causes an in- 
crease of temperature, the degree of which can be 
measured. This heat is a dynamic force, the direct 
result of the psychic element on the arrival to the 
brain of the sensorial excitation ; even the difference 
of degree of the psychic heat and the sensorial 
heat can be ascertained. Too energetic or prolonged 
work of one set of cerebral cells induces chronic 
congestion and brings on mental maladies ; for every 
brain activity hastens the blood current and develops 
heat, a local habit of which may leave incurable 
brain disorders. 

While the development of the nervous structures 
of the psychical activities related to them may thus 
seem to depend on organic processes and tendencies, 
we are not to suppose that the cause or effect is 
purely mechanical. The mind is developed out of 



PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 3 1 

its inherited nature and out of its surroundings, 
built upon the basis of its original tendencies and 
in response to the stimulus of its environment, yet 
it lies within the formative power of moral and intel- 
lectual choice and volition in self-activity. The 
brain structure of each individual will naturally 
progress according to the law of the race develop- 
ment ; yet training is an important factor in that 
development, and may determine, to a great exleirt, 
its conformity or non-conformity to heredity, and 
create individual independence of growth and 
structure. 

In a progressive race each new generation starts 
with an advance on the structural nervous status 
and the organic mental and moral power of the 
preceding generation, or in case of any special 
development, with an advance of corresponding 
nervous structure. 

From a physiological point of view, the voluntary 
motor act which emanates from the brain is only the 
repercussion more or less immediate of a sensory 
impression. It may not be a simple and purely 
reflex phemomenon, but a complex one, that lays 
various zones of the brain under contribution and 
resumes in itself the different elements, so that the 



32 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

unity at last represents personality; it is sensibility 
multiplied by all the cerebral activities in agita- 
tion, and becomes the conscious human personality 
which reveals itself in this co-ordinated series of 
activities. 



CHAPTER III. 
SENSE PERCEPTION. 

The most simple, most obvious, most universal, 
and earliest developed activity of the mind is sense 
perception. It is the fundamental source of objec- 
tive knowledge. In childhood it is the only source 
of knowledge, and the senses are the only avenue to 
the intelligence. They furnish the contact of the 
mind with the external world, revealing its existence 
and properties, and giving the mind material for self- 
activity. Material things are apprehended by the 
mind through the organs of sense which connect the 
mind with its object. These organs of sense are a 
part of our bodily organization, and their exercise 
produces sensation. 1 he thing to be recognized and 
the organ of sensation must meet; all the functions 
of the senses may be reduced to touch, through im- 
pressions of the vibrating medium, if not directly by 
the sense of touch. When this contact of the organ 
of sense with its object is produced either directly or 



34 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

indirectly, sensation is caused; perception follows, 
which is the primal activity of the mind through sen- 
sation, the recognition by the mind of nerve sensa- 
tion produced by the exercise of the senses upon 
the objects of sense; this mental recognition we 
call sense perception ; it is the link which connects 
the material with the immaterial world. Many things 
in it are unaccountable, and an attentive considera- 
tion shows us that a perfect comprehension of our 
mental powers and their mode of operation is beyond 
our reach. 

In perception there are impressions first upon the 
organs of sense, then upon the nerves, and finally 
upon the brain, which are followed by certain move- 
ments of the mind. We can study the organs of 
sense physiologically, and observe their wonderful 
adaptation to their uses ; we can follow the action of 
the appropriate nerves which serve the several 
senses. We find the organs of sense to be instru- 
ments, mechanical contrivances to assist the mind, 
furnishing the medium of nerve impressions ; the 
nerve, also, we find to be only a more subtle instru- 
ment or medium for brain impression, and the brain 
itself but an instrument or medium for the operations 
of the mind, so fine as to be often mistaken for the 



SENSE PERCEPTION. 35 

mind itself ; but no material investigation can show 
us the entire secret of sense perception ; its every 
point of transition, from matter to mind, defies 
microscopic or chemical analysis ; we cannot under- 
stand the intellectual part of an act of knowledge. 
If the organ of sense is perfectly sound, but the nerve 
defective, or vice versa, the act of perception is defec- 
tive ; and if the nerve and organ are both sound, but 
the mind disordered or absorbed, so that attention is 
imperfect, then perception is defective. Sound or- 
gan, nerve, and mind, as well as mental attention, 
are all necessary to an act of perception. 

Every exercise of the mind is dependent on atten- 
tion. This is a concentration of nervous energy 
upon one group of brain cells. As it is more or less 
complete, so the mental exercise is more or less 
productive of knowledge and mental growth. Atten- 
tion requires as conditions calmness of mind, healthy 
organs of sense and thought, nervous vigor, and 
healthy functions. All faculties grow by exercise. 
Simpler exercise builds up the power for higher. 
There is a gieat difference in individual capacity for 
attention. The most effectual exercise of attention 
is absorbed, concentrated, inclusive, and active. The 
best minds have not only great grasp of attention, 



3^ EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

but great facility for transition from one subject to 
another. In minds of unusual power the readiness 
of transition is so perfect as to enable them to attend 
to several subjects at once, keeping different groups 
of brain cells at work and accomplishing various 
kinds of mental operations simultaneously. 

The organs of sense are the eye, the ear, the nos- 
tril, the tongue, and the skin. These give us sight, 
hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Our means of out- 
ward knowledge is limited to the scope of activity of 
these senses. We know by experience what we can 
learn from them. It might have been possible to 
provide man with other means of knowledge of the 
outward universe ; it is possible that in other stages 
or spheres of existence we may be provided with 
greater capabilities of perception and means of ap- 
plying them. We may suppose the existence of 
created beings in the universe endowed with other 
or more extended powers of perception, with organs 
of larger scope of activity than ours. We have rea- 
son to think that some animals have a different 
compass of sense perception from man, less in some 
directions, greater in others, — perhaps with some 
powers not conceivable to us because not within our 
experience. The sense of smell in the dog, and the 



SENSE PERCEPTION. 37 

sense of touch in the elephant's trunk and in the 
antenna? of insects, the sense of sight in many birds 
and insects, seem to be finer and more perfect than 
ours. The bee and many other creatures seem to 
have means of mutual communication of ideas and 
discovery of knowledge of which we can form no 
conception ; they are provided with instruments to 
this end, of different kind or degree from those of 

man. 

The organs of sense do not at once act in their 
full measure in the child ; they do not possess at 
birth their full power or precision as means of 
knowledge, as in the lower order of creatures; 
they are subject to improvement in accuracy and 
growth toward completeness. The natural exercise* 
they have in their spontaneous activity, in the in- 
stinctive search of the mind for knowledge, provides 
the development they require. The result of their 
first application to objects of investigation needs to 
be corrected by experience, and each sense assists 
the others and gives approximate perfection to sense 
perception. Knowledge is best attained by the 
combined exercise of all the organs of sense. 

It is the duty of the teacher to exercise and 
strengthen the organs of sense, and to make the 



3 8 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

sense perception as accurate and complicated as pos- 
sible ; to train the mind to perfect attention to the 
impressions made on the brain through the senses, 
so that knowledge of the outward world shall be 
faithfully and thoroughly received. The eye, which 
at first perceives only surface and color, is trained 
by experience with the aid of the other senses to 
perceive texture, figure, size, number, and distance ; 
the ear, which at first is quite inactive and very 
gradually discriminates sound, may be taught to per- 
ceive every shade of tone, and many tones at once, 
until the knowledge to be obtained by it is as nice 
and exhaustive as possible. The training of the 
sense of touch, to give a large measure and variety 
of knowledge to the mind, is finely illustrated in the 
case of the education, by Dr. Howe, of Laura Briclg- 
man, who, at the age of six, could neither see, hear, 
smell, nor taste, and whose mind could become coo-- 
nizant of impressions only through the sense of 
touch. 

The teacher must understand the structure and 
functions of the organs of sense and their laws 
of health, in order to strengthen and develop them 
tightly, guard them from injury, and train them to 
the perfection of their activity. Nature attends to 



SENSE PERCEPTION. 39 

the exercise of the senses in a great measure ; the 
teacher should supplement nature in every depart- 
ment of sense activity. We can enlarge the scope 
of knowledge to be obtained by the eye and the ear 
by artificial aids ; the microscope and telescope 
assist the sight, and other scientific inventions the 
hearing. We can improve and intensify the powers 
of sense by special practice ; nature gives this train- 
ing through the very exercise that demands it. The 
forester makes his sight keen by living in the forest, 
and accustoming himself to the demands of his sur- 
roundings until he sees the slightest changes of land- 
scape ; the turning of a leaf ; the impalpable haze 
amid the foliage, — all reveal to him knowledge which 
the untrained eye would not observe ; the Indian 
trail, the path of the bee or snake, are shown by 
indications that escape the ordinary eye ; the mariner 
acquires his power of distant vision by watching the 
stars and the horizon ; the astronomer discerns the 
faintest nebula by absorbed attention to the heavens 
above him, and by steadily gazing through his lenses; 
the artist makes his eye sensitive to contour, to 
every delicate tint, to every flicker of light and shade, 
to every hint of beauty, by a constant appeal to 
nature to show him these secrets. 



4° EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

Professor Agassiz gave to a fresh student the task 
of gazing with steady attention upon two objects of 
microscopic investigation, exactly similar at first 
glance, until he should perceive their distinctions, 
thus developing the scientist's power of sight. The 
musician strikes one note on his instrument again 
and again, concentrating upon it all his listening 
power, until he hears in it all its harmonic tones ; the 
pioneer listens to the ascending sap to know when 
spring is near ; and the lover of nature hears every 
bird note in its individual quality, and distinguishes 
in the multitudinous hum of summer life the charac- 
teristic note of every insect. The touch is capable 
of such cultivation as to convey knowledge which 
we should not have supposed possible through it 
alone, as in case of the blind and deaf. This sense 
education forms a large part of Frcebel's educational 
plan, and the plays and occupations of the kinder- 
garten are designed especially to provide it and to 
cultivate the thorough attention of the mind to its 
object. 

The senses are the tools, the instruments, the 
servants of the mind; we must learn to guard and 
use them rightly in the best service of which they 
are capable. We can follow them in their activity 



SENSE PERCEPTION. 41 

and structure as far as physiology can lead us, but 
just at the point where the mind receives their com- 
munications we fail to trace the process. 

There have been many theories regarding the 
mode of sense perception ; that of a rare elastic 
medium, which transmits vibrations caused by ma- 
terial substances to the surface of the organs, as 
light, color, sound, odor, etc., which cause corre- 
sponding motions of the nerves and brain substance, 
thus producing sensation, has been most generally 
accepted. 

Sensations have duration and continuance ; curi- 
ous experiments illustrate the fact that the impres- 
sions of sight remain upon the brain after the object 
of sight is removed, so that we project upon any 
surface the picture which was made upon the retina 
and seem to see it still. Vibrations of sound remain 
upon the brain so clearly as to be counted after the 
sound has ceased. The scope of the senses is lim- 
ited ; as, for example, the eye sees objects only within 
a given distance or of given dimensions, and sees 
only the prismatic colors. We discover by the dark 
lines of the solar spectrum that light contains colors 
which are not appreciable by the eye, and are there- 
fore dark ; the ear hears a very limited scale of tone, 



4 2 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

and perceives a comparatively small part of the realm 
of sound. 

The activity of the organs of sense gives us pleas- 
ure and produces or stimulates desire of knowledge, 
if kept within the bounds of health ; and although 
the evidence of one sense has often to be corrected 
by another, and all by experience, yet on the whole 
they give us certainty and accuracy of knowledge. 
This knowledge becomes more and more complex 
as we multiply the material and combine the activity 
of the senses ; thus we continually enlarge our domain 
of knowledge and supply the mind with ideas which 
reveal in their connections not only the properties 
of matter, but the causes and order as well as the 
significance of the phenomena of the universe, thus 
training and developing the mind itself. Aristotle 
defines perception as judgment. In the act of 
sense perception we constantly exercise the faculties 
of apprehension, of comparison, and of judgment, 
thereby developing the reasoning powers ; by the 
accumulation of facts we exercise the memory, and 
by their orderly arrangement, the powers of analysis 
and generalization ; also, by the perception of the 
beauty and harmony of the universe we develop the 
taste and the soul. It is by this great function of 



SENSE PERCEPTION. 43 

sense perception that we make all our connections 
with nature and our fellow-men, and through the 
mental activity to which they give rise we reach 
the development of our whole mind and spirit, and 
the establishment of our relations with the universe 
and its Creator. 



CHAPTER IV. 

MEMORY. 

In the natural order of mental development mem- 
ory follows sense perception. The memory is the 
faculty of retention. We cannot be said to get 
knowledge if unable to retain it. The senses in- 
form us of things at the instant of observation. 
Apprehension belongs to the present, and is the 
mind's recognition at the instant of sensation or 
perception ; memory belongs to the past ; yet these 
faculties are so closely related in their operations 
that we cannot entirely separate them in our consid- 
eration. We have the power of mental acquisition 
and the power of mental conservation, which to- 
gether give us knowledge. We have also a power 
of calling this knowledge into consciousness, or rec- 
ollecting the information or experience, which com- 
pletes the function of the mind called memory. The 
word memory primarily means the retentive power of 
the mind, but popular use makes it include -recollec- 



MEMORY. 45 

tion. The faculty of sense perception would be as 
useless without the faculty of memory, as either would 
be without the faculty of recollection, yet they are 
each distinct faculties. The terms mental reproduc- 
tion or revivability of ideas, recognition or conscious mem- 
ory, are equivalents of recollection. 

The knowledge which is retained in the mind by 
memory is not always present to consciousness ; it 
continues to endure unconsciously, and becomes con- 
scious on demand of the will or on some recurrence 
of associated ideas, or, after a longer or shorter 
period, spontaneously. It is probable that all the 
impressions received by the mind are indelible ; 
many are unconsciously received, many more un- 
consciously retained, and a large share are never 
revived by association or will, and therefore never 
appear to the consciousness. There are multitudes 
of illustrative experiences on record which demon- 
strate these conclusions. We can hardly escape the 
inference, from many such demonstrations, that the 
power of memory is eternal, and that the impressions 
of the mind will forever be subject to revivability. 
Dreams, somnambulism, insanity, delirum, and dis- 
ease offer many marvellous phenomena which attest 
the undying power of memory and recollection. 



46 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

Memory does not apply alone to the intellectual 
acquirements, but extends to feeling, desires, and vo- 
litions, and is an essential element in moral account- 
ability. It is closely connected in its activity with 
conscience. We could experience neither the pen- 
alties of moral transgression, nor the peace of a sat- 
isfied conscience, without memory. The chance of 
the resuscitation of memory in a future existence is 
one of the strongest arguments for eternal retribution . 
The oft-repeated phenomenon of the sudden revela- 
tion of the whole course of life, as well as its every 
scene and incident, during the instant preceding 
drowning, as though a sudden illumination were 
thrown upon all the recesses of the memory, is an il- 
lustration of the possibilities of awakened memory 
and its effect upon awakened conscience ; so indis- 
solubly are the mind and soul linked in their nature 
and destiny. 

The memory is an essential element in the con- 
sciousness of personal identity. I am the same to- 
day as yesterday, because I find recorded in my 
memory my consciousness of yesterday. The power 
fo memory and of recollection varies greatly in de- 
gree in different individuals and periods of life. 
Some men can easily commit facts to memory, but 



MEMORY. 47 

only during a short period are able to revive them 
in the mind ; others require more repetition and effort 
in retaining, but can more easily and for a longer 
period revive the knowledge. In early life the mem- 
ory is very impressible, but the impressions are ap- 
parently easily effaced ; nevertheless many which are 
not for a time revivable become so later in life, and 
the scenes and events of childhood, as well as the 
facts then stored up in the mind and lost sight of 
during the main period of life, are spontaneously re- 
vived in old age, while the later impressions of the 
mind are forgotten.* Children seem to forget very 
soon those facts of knowledge which are obtained 
before the age of seven or eight ; yet the facts of 
unconscious memory are mostly accumulated before 
that time, and enter into the mind as organic ele- 
ments of its activity. Frcebel regards the uncon- 
scious knowledge gained before the age of eight as 
the most important knowledge of life ; on this con- 
clusion as a principle he bases his methods of educa- 
tion. But if you give the child a large list of facts 

* It may be that the earliest and deepest impressions on the 
brain-cells, being afterward overlaid by the more active but less 
permanent impressions of middle life, are at last brought again 
into prominence by the disappearance of the secondary im- 
pressions. 



48 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

to be stored in the memory, it will be necessary 
either to keep them in constant use or to renew 
them later in life. It seems desirable that the 
knowledge gained in early life and soon forgotten 
should be revived by the study of the first stage of 
maturity, so that all that has dropped into uncon- 
scious memory may be made once more conscious 
and therefore more enduring. 

Some minds have a stronger hold upon facts, others 
upon thoughts or feelings ; some have g r eat difficulty 
in recalling names and dates, and ease in recalling 
analogies, ideas, sequences of thought, and vice versa. 
The quality of the mind has been thought by many 
to depend on this difference ; so .that a mind has 
been judged to be of small capacity when the mem- 
ory is strong and precise, and of large capacity in 
proportion as the memory of particulars is vague and 
uncertain. But the best quality of mind will com- 
bine a strong and particular memory and recollection 
with the ability to reason well, or with a vivid imagi- 
nation. Seneca could repeat two thousand names in 
the order given on once hearing. A young man at 
Padua, it is recorded, could recite thirty-six thousand 
words in any required order on first hearing them or 
after a year's interval. Macaulay, Dr. Arnold of 



MEMORY. 49 

Rugby, and the celebrated Porson are instances of 
persons of remarkable power of recalling what had 
been read or heard. Cyrus, Mithridates, Napoleon, 
the Duke of Wellington, and Washington, all had 
phenomenal power of recalling names and faces of 
individuals in their armies. 

The memory may be strengthened and trained. 
Habits of concentrated attention to objects of 
memory, of association of ideas, of analyzing trains 
of thought, improve and develop the power of the 
memory and recollection. Certain ideas naturally 
excite each other. Simultaneous ideas, contiguous 
ideas, dependent ideas, ideas of cause and effect, of 
means and ends, of whole and part, of like and un- 
like, of contrasted and similar, of object and subject, 
of symbol and reality, of words and ideas which they 
represent, of form, sound, color, odor, etc., etc , 
respond to each other in the recollection. All these 
can be reduced to the inclusive associations of total- 
ity of impression ; those thoughts suggest each other 
which have constituted parts of the same act of 
cognition ; by this solution the whole phenomena of 
association may be explained. 

Therefore, in developing the power of memory, we 
must habituate the mind to a vivid and complete 

4 



50 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

cognition, involving strongly all associated ideas. It 
will be easier to commit words to memory if repeated 
aloud or frequently copied or said in concert, thus 
multiplying the means of mental impression. Ii will 
be easier to retain ideas acquired under pleasurable 
excitement in varied and striking connections than 
without these stimulating accompaniments. The 
memory will be quickened by a complicated associa- 
tion of ideas and strengthened by constant exercise ; 
if memory is trusted it will grow responsive ; if the 
mind does not at once recall a fact, keep it in a 
waiting posture and allow nature time to work ; the 
forgotten name or date or other fact will seem to 
arise spontaneously in answer to the expectation. 
If we seek something which has been stored up in 
the mind, we declare by that act that we have not al- 
together forgotten it ; we still hold it by a part, and 
when this detached part- at length presents itself, it 
reunites itself spontaneously to that with which it 
was originally connected. 

It is probable that the thought of an object sug- 
gested by desire is always accompanied by accessoi y 
thoughts more or less numerous, present in the 
mind consciously or unconsciously, which lead to the 
recovery of the desired thought ; this direction of 



MEMORY. 51 

the mind by the associations of unconscious memory 
becomes fixed and constant, and results in automatic 
mental operations, like the act of walking or speak- 
ing or reading. In the process of acquiring these 
acts of knowledge, each step is an object of conscious 
recollection ; the first movements of the muscles, the 
first memory of the words is conscious and an act of 
recollection, but at length it becomes a habit, and we 
are no longer conscious of its operation ; we read the 
page without the conscious recognition of the letters 
or even the words, but yet each word and letter must 
have produced its effect on the mind which may at 
any moment be called into consciousness by atten- 
tion. In like manner, as we are surrounded by a 
complication of relations, only a small part of which 
enter consciously into the mind, the mind becomes 
filled unconsciously with impressions and elements of 
knowledge which are subject to our attention and 
may be recognized at the call of the will, but even 
when unrecognized enter into the operations of the 
mind, and. even into its very structure, so as to become 
elements of automatic mental and moral activity, and 
build up the intellect and character. Every activity 
of the brain cells leaves its traces in the structure of 
those cells which become a channel of revivable acliv- 



52 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

ity. This is the physiological explanation of memory 
which applies to all parts of the nervous system, so 
that we may speak of a memory of the spinal cord or 
of any nerve centre resulting in automatic activity. 

All automatic activity being incapable of correc- 
tion, is a part of the consolidated mind and soul, 
acting with constant energy in its own direction. 
The unconscious memory is such an agent, and 
therefore more powerful and important in its function 
than any succession of conscious memories or recol- 
lected facts. It seems to reach a permanent and 
transmissible structural influence which is unalterable 
by any act of will. It is in view of this result that 
all the earliest education is of radical importance, 
and cannot be overestimated or be begun too soon. 

Memory is disturbed by any disturbance of the 
functions of the brain, sometimes acting more highly 
under such disturbance. Mental fatigue affects the 
memory. A tired child will seem to have forgotten 
his lesson, which will be restored to his recollection 
by rest of the nervous system or physical refresh- 
ment ; often by a renewal of fresh air alone. 

Many curious instances are related of the effect of 
disordered brain on the memory. The Rev. Wm. 
Tennant, while conversing with his bi other in Latin. 



MEMORY. 53 

apparently died ; he was resuscitated and found to 
be ignorant of every event of his past life. He was 
slowly taught to read and write, and afterward began 
to study Latin. One day, while reciting a lesson 
from Cornelius Nepos, he felt a sudden shock in his 
head and found himself able to speak the Latin as 
fluently as before his illness, and his memory was 
suddenly completely restored. An ignorant servant- 
girl (a celebrated case mentioned by Coleridge) , dur- 
ing the delirium of fever, repeated with perfect cor- 
rectness passages from a number of theological 
works in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; these were 
found to be quotations from authors whose works 
she had heard, without comprehending, at some past 
period of her life, read aloud by a clergyman in 
whose employ she was. Dr. Willis relates the case 
of a man who looked forward to attacks of insanity 
to which he was subject with impatience, because of 
the power they seemed to bring of increased mem- 
ory. He said every mental operation then appeared 
easy to him ; his memory acquired a singular degree 
of perfection. There are a vast number of such 
illustrations on record which accumulate evidence 
that thought is imperishable. Coleridge says: "It 
may be more possible that heaven and earth pass 



54 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

away than that a single thought should be loosened 

or lost." 

Spencer says : " Instinct may be regarded as a 
kind of organized memory; on the other hand, 
memory may be regarded as a kind of incipient 
instinct. The automatic action of a bee build- 
ing one of its wax cells answers to outer relations 
so constantly experienced that they are, as it were, 
organically remembered. Conversely, an ordinary 
recollection implies a cohesion of psychical states 
which becomes stronger by repetition, and so approx- 
imates more and more to the indissoluble, the 
automatic, or instinctive cohesions." And again : 
'Memory necessarily comes into existence when- 
ever automatic action is imperfect." "We do not 
speak of ourselves as recollecting relations which 
have become organically registered." " The clear- 
est instance of the gradual lapse of memory into 
automatic coherence is yielded by the musician. . . . 
By long-continued practice the series of psychical 
changes between seeing the notation and striking the 
key have been reduced into one almost automatic 
change, — all these mental states which were at first 
so many separate recollections ultimately constitute 
a succession so rapid that the whole of them pass in 



MEMORY. 55 

an instant." "Memory, then, belongs," says Spen- 
cer, " to that class of psychical states which are in 
process of being organized. Conscious memory 
passes into unconscious or organic memory." 

In view of all this testimony, how important is the 
training and nourishment of the memory. That such 
facts and images shall be put within its grasp as are 
worthy never to be forgotten, such as may enter into 
the very organic structure of the mind and build up 
the immortal intellect and character ; that no habits 
of thought shall be begun and consummated by the 
teacher which cannot be woven into the very tissue 
of the understanding, — this is the great aim of the 
education of the memory. If sense perception takes 
in the mind's nourishment and food, the memory di- 
gests and assimilates it and thus builds up the indi- 
vidual and race characteristics. 



CHAPTER V. 
IMAGINATION. 

In observing the child's mental activities, we dis- 
cover very early not only the faculty of memory, but 
a very strong and active faculty of reproducing the 
impressions made on the memory. This faculty car- 
ries with it an impulse of expression, so that we 
see the child acting out in his plays the facts of his 
observation ; these facts have left an image of them- 
selves so complete as to be easily and instinctively 
revived in all their associations of place, time, mo- 
tion, and relation to other facts. It is this power of 
complete and active revivability and reproduction to 
which we give the name of imagination. 

I see a child playing upon the street. He is ab- 
sorbed in the idea which he is occupied in express- 
ing. Every movement and posture shows me that 
the image of a proud and prancing horse fills his 
mind and demands expression through as complete 
imitation as he can produce. His imagination is at 



IMAGINATION. 57 

work and masters all his faculties. Or, perhaps, he 
imitates the steam-engine, or some other mechanical 
object, to his mental conception of which he seeks 
to conform every expression of his body. This men- 
tal conception, or image, is a pattern which memory 
gives him for imitation. To produce this pattern a 
very complete cognition is necessary ; the more com- 
plete, the more perfect the imitation or reproduction. 
If we have observed a material object in its totality 
of impression on the sense perception ; if we have 
so retained it in the mind, in all its surroundings and 
qualities, that we are able to reproduce it in its en- 
tirety, so that it stands before the mind's eye as dis- 
tinctively as if the senses again perceived it, — then 
we produce it, not merely by memory, but by imagi- 
nation. In other words, we have an image in the 
mind which may serve as well as the reality for actual 
representation through expression. 

This kind of imagination is very fully developed in 
the child, as is illustrated by his constant representa- 
tion in his plays of all that he has observed, — things 
animate and inanimate ; nothing seems so foreign to 
his nature as that he cannot imagine himself to be it 
and assume all its qualities, as well as attempt their 
expression by every faculty he can command. His 



58 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

instinct to invest any material form with the most 
unnatural and inappropriate qualities, and convert it 
into a representation of the image in his mind, enters 
into all his plays and occupations and gives them 
life and interest. For example, a clothes-pin serves 
for a baby, and a chair for a horse ; every form is 
converted by the power of imagination into a vivid 
likeness of the conception of the mind based upon 
the recollection of some observed fact. One qual- 
ity of the child's imagination is its power of absorb- 
ing the child's consciousness ; the thing he imagines 
appears real to him ; he loses for the time the distinc- 
tion between what is actually present to his senses 
and that memory of the past which is actively em- 
ployed in presenting the image of which alone he is 
conscious. This absorbing quality of imagination is 
apparent also in the mature mind, but the discrim- 
inating quality becomes stronger and clearer, and 
there is less confusion of the real with the unreal. 
This absorption and realization of imaginary ideas 
leads sometimes to an apparent want of truthful- 
ness, which should be corrected by showing more 
clearly the distinction between the image and the 
fact, and not by thrusting on the child's conscience 
the responsibility of untruthfulness. 



IMAGINATION. 59 

The exercise of the imagination in the vivid and 
thorough recollection of what has been presented to 
sense perception gives power to description in writ- 
ing, talking, or acting ; and when the faculties of ex- 
pression are equal to the presentation of this vivid 
imagination, the same image is produced in the mind 
of the witness. The writer, the speaker, the actor, 
the painter, in this way reproduces for others what 
was in his memory. Close observation is an es- 
sential element of power. The landscape which is 
faithfully reproduced from memory must have been 
closely and skilfully observed ; the face, the gesture, 
the voice, natural to the utterance of emotions of 
various kinds, must be inseparably associated in the 
mind of the actor with those emotions in order to be 
faithfully reproduced as an apparent act of nature. 
In order to develop the imagination of the child, we 
must, therefore, cultivate the faculty of complete ob- 
servation and the acuteness of sense perception in 
storing the mind with facts which are to serve as a 
basis for reproduction. We must do all in our power 
to encourage in a child the instinct for expression, 
as effort toward expression gives distinctness to the 
ima^e and thus develops the power of imagination. 
To this end, give the child all the opportunity it 



60 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

demands by drawing, moulding, building, singing, 
acting, and coloring ; give it necessary material and 
necessary tools ; train the faculties to the use of 
tools, and give the mind a knowledge of the qual- 
ities of its materials ; inculcate the idea of truthful- 
ness and thoroughness, or completeness, in every 
expression. This connects the working out of the 
imagination with the sense for conduct and the love 
of truth. 

The plays of the child are nature's methods of 
development for the imagination ; multiply forms 
and methods in the same direction ; follow the 
individual proclivity as to means ; if one child enjoys 
moulding, another building, another drawing, give 
each its desired medium of expression, and draw out 
its native aptness, taste, or genius. Feed the imagi- 
nation through well-chosen stories or fancies, by 
poetry, by pictures, by demanding of the child 
original effort of idea and expression in talking and 
writing, so as to awaken the responsive enjoyment of 
others ; yet stop short of that excitement of the 
faculties which disturbs a healthful balance of the 
physical and mental activity, and especially of that 
uncontrol of the imagination which tends to confuse 
the moral ideas. Introduce the exercise of the im- 



IMAGINATION. 6 1 

agination into every branch of study, as it gives 
vividness to facts and zest and freshness to the 
intellectual effort of study, adding enthusiastic enjoy- 
ment to the act of learning. Reading, language, 
geography, and history are most dependent upon the 
exercise of this faculty, and cannot be profitably or 
pleasantly pursued without it. Numbers depend 
much on the imagination for effective study, their 
processes being invested with interest by presenta- 
tion through the imagination as connected with real 
transactions and the business of life. 

Imagination is not only the power of complete 
cognition and representation, but the power also of 
reconstruction. When various facts of memory have 
become so habituated to thought as to be uncon- 
sciously disintegrated, their elements enter spontane- 
ously into new relations and connections, so as to 

i 

gather around a new focus of thought and build a 
new ideal of imagination ; this is an original combi- 
nation or organization of revived facts of memory 
and a higher effort of imagination than simple re- 
production ; it is called the productive or creative 
imagination, or by some writers, ideality. In its 
most advanced development, combined with unu- 
sual facility of expression, it constitutes genius. For 



62 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

example, an artist may bring together into a new 
unity fragments of other unities of landscape, 
reconstructed according to a new harmony, until he 
produces a composition or image of his own creation 
which, although not a copy of any real landscape, may 
be said to be true to nature because faithful in its 
parts and in its unity to the plan or harmony of 
nature. Even a copy of a landscape must be true to 
this harmony; if it be true only to the details of the 
landscape, it does not reproduce in the mind the 
feelings excited by the real landscape, and is, there- 
fore, not true to nature ; it is only the artist who 
sees and embodies even in a copy the key to nature's 
beauty. The productive imagination makes for its 
expression a new harmony out of the revived facts of 
memory. Some philosophers assert that no exercise 
of the imagination can be called creative, inasmuch 
as it furnishes no material which has not been stored 
up by the memory, because the mind cannot form a 
conception whose elements have not been provided 
by experience or observation. But is not this new 
harmony, this new unity, this act of reorganiza- 
tion, a creative act ? It furnishes a new ideal of 
thought or feeling which is essentially original, 
although made up of parts of remembered things. 



IMAGINATION. 63 

So the act of the magnet in grouping the iron filings 
into a symmetrical order, so the process of crystal- 
lization and polarization, readjusting atoms into 
harmonious relations, so the assimilative function of 
the body, which converts to its own uses the changing 
material of the body, is a creative act, and a fair 
illustration of the creative power of the imagination. 
An ideal landscape, an original grouping, so harmo- 
nized as to present clearly to the mind a new image or 
focus of feeling or thought which calls forth respon- 
sive emotion, an historical scene conceived by the 
artist, a personification of some impersonal idea, a 
symbolic painting or statue, a monument of archi- 
tecture, a musical composition, a poetic expression 
of fancy, a character or scene of fiction, a fairy, a 
faun, a Pegasus, a god, — all these are results of 
this higher effort of the imagination, which is 
essentially creative. Poetry, painting, sculpture, 
architecture, musical composition, dramatic acting, 
mechanical invention, and even the higher mathe- 
matics and the sciences, are all fields for the exercise 
of this power. 

The imagination has its limitations ; it can never 
produce elements which have been altogether outside 
of its experience, any more than a blind man can 



64 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

conceive of color. Even when it forms a new com- 
bination which it invests with a new individuality, yet 
all parts of that combination are furnished by the 
memory, either conscious or unconscious. The 
character of a drama or story which is, presented so 
clearly as to become a person in the mind of the 
reader as well as the writer, like Puck or Ariel, 
Portia or Shylock, is yet made up of qualities which 
have been the object of such complete observation 
as has made them a constituent part of the mind's 
furniture, and ready to reunite in new forms and 
processes of unification. 

The memory and imagination, so closely related 
and merging into each other almost imperceptibly, 
are yet perfectly distinct in their activity; this dis- 
tinction is invariably perceived by a sane mind. 
The degree of activity of imagination possessed by a 
man need not confuse his recollection ; he can 
always tell with certainty what he remembers and 
what he merely imagines ; his veracity is not affected 
by his power of imagination. It is essential that we 
should preserve this clearness of discrimination, and 
never lose the ability to subordinate the imagination 
to conscience or to perceive the precise outlines of 
truth. 



IMAGINATION. 65 

The imagination easily yields to the law of habit 
or automatic tendency ; it grows by exercise ; it sub- 
mits to control; and is more effective under the 
influence of systematic training. The cultivated 
imagination is superior to the uncultivated ; the one 
is finished, the other crude ; the one moulds men and 
things, the other is wasted ; the one bears fruit, the 
other is comparatively fruitless. Constant effort and 
labor, training and study, are essential to the best 
exercise of even the productive imagination. No 
one achieves distinction in art without persevering 
work and constant progress in education. The 
greatest genius imposes the greatest amount of 
arduous labor on its possessor, and requires persist- 
ent practice and intense efforts of will for its accom- 
plishments. 

Imagination connects itself thoroughly with the 
moral faculties ; if allowed to construct ideals of 
degradation, or revel in visions of vice or horror, it 
becomes unable to rise to purer and more spiritual 
ideas, and vice versa, so that it acts with ever accel- 
erating force to drag down or lift up the soul ; it 
adds wings to simple belief, and brings the unseen 
vividly to the soul's apprehension ; it presents " the 
substance of things Loped for," and i: , therefore, 



66 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

equivalent to faith when applied to the soul's activi- 
ties ; it is as direct a source of inspiration to high 
thought and conduct as nature has provided, and 
leads us to the verge of life with joyous expectation. 
It assists the soul in grouping about the moral ideals 
the highest conceivable qualities, and makes them 
facts of consciousness. These ideals of beauty, of 
harmony, of goodness, of truth, of purity, nourish the 
soul. The impulse for expression which always 
accompanies a vivid and active imagination, exercises 
and strengthens the habit of truthfulness through 
faithfulness of its expression to its ideal. It involves 
the attempt at utter conformity of the expression to 
the conception, which is the essence of truthfulness. 
This conformity must be seen in the details and in 
the spirit of the product of the imagination, and is 
the lesson of nature to the soul through art, which is 
the point of communication between the active 
imagination of the worker and the receptive imagi- 
nation of the observer. Imagination is an active 
faculty, and must work itself out in forms which shall 
reach other minds and reproduce in them images. 
The stronger the faculty of imagination, the more 
determined its impulse for expression, and the 
greater its instinctive desire for response. It must 



IMAGINATION. 67 

reproduce itself not only in forms, but in effects ; it 
must bear fruit, or it will not yield happiness or sat- 
isfaction. It therefore educates the soul to activity 
for others, to reciprocal human relations, to sympathy 
of thought and feeling. This phase of its develop- 
ment should be encouraged in children. It intensi- 
fies our perception of our relations with our fellow- 
beings by deepening and multiplying our points of 
contact and sympathy, by enabling us to place our- 
selves in their position and appreciate their mo- 
tives ; it gives us more varied sources of joy and 
sorrow, makes us capable of stronger and more 
varied emotions, and more susceptible of impres- 
sions ; it furnishes a pattern or ideal for both con- 
duct and art which either may copy by skilled 
methods and mastery of its material. The mind and 
soul should be trained to this mastery, that they may 
serve that great automatic power of imagination 
which is called inspiration when the imagination be- 
comes an unconscious agent of the soul. In such 
an absorbed and automatic process of the soul, where 
it connects itself vitally with the highest sources of 
thought and feeling, great ideals, or patterns, are 
revealed to man, which subordinate all the faculties 
of the mind and soul and command their activities. 



68 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

This is the highest development of the human spirit, 
and authoritative in its expression. So far as it is 
approximated in any individual life, it compels obe- 
dience. " See that thou do all things according to 
the pattern which I shewed thee in the mount," were 
the words which defined the obligation of Moses in 
building the tabernacle, and are pertinent to every 
one who receives such a pattern for art or conduct. 

Dreams are an effect of the uncontrolled imagina- 
tion, and may be inconsistent with nature and fact. 
They sometimes rearrange the facts of memory logi- 
cally, at other times they are without sequence or 
reason ; while they occupy the mind they seem real. 
A man dreaming of the same scenes every night 
in continuous order might find the visions of the 
night to present as real a phase of life to his con- 
sciousness as the experiences of his waking life. 
Somnambulism is the unconscious action of the 
dream, when the absorbed mind directs the will 
spontaneously ; in such a state memory and reason 
are preternaturally active, the dreamer speaks flu- 
ently, executes feats impossible to his conscious activ- 
ity, and seems to have perceptions through other 
means than the senses ; at such times it is dangerous 
to awaken the sleeper. Revery is similar to dreams ; 



IMAGINATION. 69 

the working of the imagination is spontaneous, but 
accompanied by consciousness. Insanity is a state in 
which the imagination under great excitement carries 
with it determined conviction of the reality of its 
apparition, and tyrannizes the mind and body as well 
as the soul, driving the faculties to excessive activity 
in entire uncontrol of the will. 

The bodily functions are powerfully affected by 
the imagination ; diseases are induced by it, and 
cures performed. Men have been killed by working 
upon their imagination, exciting expectation of death. 
The magination causes sensations which are gener 
ally attributed only to activity of the senses them- 
selves. Optical illusions are produced, sounds in- 
audible are heard, taste and smell operate, and 
sensations of heat and cold are felt, although no 
outward cause exists ; but the imagination acts so 
powerfully on the nerves which perceived those sen- 
sations as to originate the appropriate activity of 
the nerves and produce the result of actuality. Even 
the muscles are affected to express these sensations 
and emotions as if called into activity by the natural 
causes. The mouth waters in thinking of a palata- 
ble food, as it does in preparation for mastication ; 
the face is moved to smile or frown, or the body to 



70 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

conform its gesture and posture, or even to talk and 
act, from the stimulus of imagination alone. It is 
said, however, that if the optic nerve is destroyed, 
images of sight are not thereafter reproduced by the 
imagination ; and so of sound, — the want of the ap- 
propriate nerve prevents the formation of the image 
produced by its activity.* 

Let me once more call attention to the insensible 
gradation of the faculties of body, mind, and soul, 
and their indissoluble connection and order of pre- 
cedence, passing through incomprehensible steps of 
transition from lower to higher, each serving its su- 
perior, and feeding and nourishing the higher func- 
tions of the complex unity of man. Sense percep- 
tion supplies memory with forms which feed the 
imagination and conscience, and through all these 
faculties, in successive degrees of power and more 
and more immediate connection, the soul is nourished 
and the human being is educated in symmetry. 

*The response of the muscles and organs of the body to an 
imaginary sensation may be spoken of as an hallucination of 
the motor-nerves through the unreal image in the brain, which 
excites the roots of those nerves as actually, though perhaps 
more feebly, as if it originated with the sensory nerves, and 
was the result of a sense impression. 



CHAPTER VI. 
JUDGMENT AND REASON. 

In the processes of mind involved in sense percep- 
tion, memory, and imagination, we find evidence of 
a pervading faculty essential to them all, which we 
call judgment. The function of this faculty is to 
analyze and compare the facts of apprehension, and 
draw a conclusion from this analysis and comparison. 
Every act of sense perception is to some extent a 
judgment, and involves comparison and generaliza- 
tion, a balancing of associated sensations, and a 
determining apprehension of their relations. Aris- 
totle called perception an act of judgment. 

This faculty of judgment is exercised by the child 
in gaining his ground facts. He observes qualities, 
then compares them as to degree, as to kind, as to 
effect ; and on this comparison as a basis he forms 
a judgment ; by this judgment he analyzes, compares, 
generalizes, and arranges the results of observation 
which he holds before his mind for this purpose. 



72 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

Judgment, therefore, includes apprehension, abstrac- 
tion, analysis, comparison, generalization. It lays a 
foundation for memory and imagination by grouping 
or classifying facts in the mind according to every 
variety of association, so that these faculties may 
have their material assorted and ready for use. 

Watch the child in his play ; you^ see that after 
observing qualities he naturally compares them. 
This *block is higher, that is straighter ; this is 
smoother, that is rounder; this is brightest, that is 
darkest, etc. According to this comparison, he goes 
on to arrangement : these are like, those are unlike ; 
this belongs with the hard things, that belongs with 
the soft things ; this is a living thing, that is a thing 
without life ; this is a mineral, that is a plant, etc. 
He classifies things either consciously or uncon- 
sciously, according to their common properties, and 
assigns each new fact of knowledge its place in this 
classification by the law of resemblances. This act 
of classification is complex ; it rests on sense percep- 
tion and memory, but includes the power of holding 
a property or quality, that is, an abstract idea, before 
the mind for analysis or comparison. This power 
is by some psychologists called abstraction, or the 
power of mental conception. In all complex opera- 



JUDGMENT AND REASON. 73 

tions there is a series of judgments or decisions 
founded on a comparison of qualities, and following 
a natural sequence of cause and effect, or evidence 
and conclusion. This series of judgments constitutes 
reasoning. 

Concentrated attention of the mind is necessary 
to the correct exercise of judgment ; i. e., a power of 
reflection, of considering the facts of apprehension 
as they lie in the mind, and a power of decision 
when the attention and reflection are complete. The 
faculty of judgment is susceptible of constant and 
careful culture. It should be called into exercise at 
every step of education. It will lead the child to 
intellectual and moral results which shall be final, 
to decisions which he need never again question. 
This result is especially pronounced in the appli- 
cation of judgment to conscience ; inductive con- 
science, or conscience in its applications to courses 
of conduct, is in many cases purely an act of judg- 
ment. In the education of the faculty of judgment 
and reason, the part of the teacher is to see that no 
mistake is made in the process ; that there is clear 
apprehension, just comparison, thorough analysis, 
and orderly generalization. Through this process 
of judgment the child is to classify all his knowl- 



74 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

edge, and learn the relations, the uses, and the laws 
of material things ; this is the pursuit of science. 
By the same faculty, also, he forms a standard of 
moral action, and discovers the direction of duty. 

Judgment becomes more and more complicated as 
the intellectual and moral faculties advance to their 
development. A larger field for comparison, a 
greater number of relations and associations, enter 
into an act of judgment as facts accumulate in the 
mind and knowledge increases ; but this complexity 
is met by the accumulation of definite judgments 
already made. These form a fund of experience 
which need not be worked out afresh, but contains 
already elements of knowledge to be relied upon as 
decisive in further judgments. As fundamental ex- 
perience and accumulated judgments are fixed in the 
mind they become unconscious, consolidated, and 
organic, and are automatic or intuitive in their 
action ; they furnish the innate ideas of the mind 
and soul and enter into the structure of both, to be 
transmitted from one generation to another. Thus 
they are the most important and enduring acquisi- 
tions to mankind. 

The operations of judgment are common to ail 
men, but the faculty of generalization is very un- 



JUDGMENT AND REASON. 75 

equally distributed, and is one of the highest exer- 
cises of the human intellect. Sense perception and 
memory are common to man and brute animals, but 
analysis, comparison, and generalization are distinc- 
tively human attributes ; yet we see some approach 
to these operations in the more intelligent and saga- 
cious animals. The instinct of the bee, the ant, the 
spider , the intelligence of the dog, the horse, the ele- 
phant ; the adaptation of means to ends to a greater 
or less extent by all animals, — indicate the presence 
of organic if not conscious judgment. 

A word alone expresses sense perception, as rough, 
blue, wood; but a sentence or affirmation is necessary to 
express a judgment, as this wood is smooth ; this vessel 
is a brig. The act of judgment is not expressed by 
the name of a thing or quality, but requires a predica- 
tion or assertion. As sense perception involves a 
judgment, so all consciousness also includes a judg- 
ment or discrimination. We cannot have an appre- 
hension of the relation of things without judgment. 
We cannot decide upon the moral quality of actions 
without judgment ; when we have thus decided, then 
conscience directs us to do the right and omit the 
wrong, to abhor the evil and cleave to the good, and 
the will determines our obedience to conscience ; 



76 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

therefore, judgment, conscience, and will are neces- 
sary to conduct. 

Anything which disturbs our deliberate attention 
to the object of judgment, as any passion or emo- 
tion or imagination, hinders the correct result of 
judgment ; it may confuse even sense perception, 
and prevent that just comparison which gives us the 
true result of observation. This disturbing element 
operates in the direction of both intellectual and 
moral judgments to pervert or to blur them. We 
cannot trust to the justness of our judgment where 
we are influenced by a strong feeling in one direc- 
tion or another. We should divest ourselves of a 
preference before we conclude a judgment. This 
principle is acknowledged in legal trials by jury ; no 
one is allowed to make one of a jury who has a pre- 
conceived opinion respecting the matter to be judged, 
or who may have any selfish interest in the decision. 

Judgment extends to all knowledge and all opin- 
ion, to every kind of evidence, certain or uncertain , 
if the evidence is certain, demonstration and proof 
result ; if uncertain, the judgment is uncertain, the 
result probable or possible. Good judgment is the 
result of good sense ; nonsense is contrary to right 
judgment. Common- sense is that degree of judg- 



JUDGMENT AND REASON. 77 

ment common to men of experience in all ages, or 
that result of common experience which is organic 
or intuitive judgment. It is that degree of sense 
which is necessary to our relations with our fellows 
and our surroundings. Common-sense is a rectifier 
of individual peculiarities of judgment ; it gives a 
standard by which men can correct their judgments ; 
it is a tribunal of great authority, and its conclusions 
are according to right reason. It entitles men to be 
called reasonable beings. Principles of common- 
sense are axioms, self-evident truths, upon which 
all men agree, and which are the foundation of all 
further judgments and all knowledge. 

It is not in our power to judge as we wish, but our 
judgment is made necessary by our evidence and our 
intuitions. Judgment follows apprehension inevita- 
bly , it cannot go back of self-evident propositions. 
Every conclusion reached by reasoning must go 
back to axioms. The science of mathematics is 
established incontrovertibly on the foundation of a 
few axioms or truths which are apparent to common- 
sense or natural judgment, although to some minds 
some principles which require demonstration for 
most men are axioms also. All sciences are built 
up in the same way on facts of intuitive knowledge. 



7 8 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

In reflecting upon the processes of the mind itself, 
the mind works in a natural order of reasoning from 
cause to effect, according to an inherent sequence of 
judgment which may be analyzed and arranged, and 
this analysis or arrangement of the order of reason- 
ing constitutes the science of logic and furnishes the 
rules for correct reasoning. 

Axioms, or intuitive truths, are a part of the con- 
sciousness, and must be treated, as are the senses, 
perception, and memory, as the necessary means 
given us by God for discovering the truth. Our 
ordinary conduct in life is built up on these intuitive 
truths and first principles of reason. Any man who 
fails to recognize them and act upon them is adjudged 
insane. The axioms of any science are the first 
things to be settled in the mind in the study of that 
science, and are at once perceived to be according to 
the nature of things. There are axioms of taste 
which are perhaps less universally recognized, but, 
being perceived by those whose development of 
taste is most marked, are accepted, on their recoo-nr 
tion or revelation, by all mankind. There is a 
standard of beauty which, though not discoverable 
by all men, is by all men acknowledged, on the 
revelation of genius, to be supreme. There are 



JUDGMENT AND REASON. 79 

axioms in morals and in philosophy, on which are 
built up the moral code and the spiritual development 
of mankind. 

Every code of morals, as well as every form of 
religious belief, is the result of the application of the 
judgment, — either the instinctive judgment of com- 
mon-sense, based on intuitive truths, or the active 
and conscious judgment of each individual man 
applied to the moral and religious ideas which have 
come to his mind originally or through other minds. 
Each man must decide by a process of reasoning 
from intellectual evidence what he shall regard as 
truth, and therefore authoritative. If he makes such 
decision without such process of reasoning, he* has 
superstition, but not belief. Yet the process of 
reasoning may lead him to the conclusion that the 
limitations of his intellect prevent his forming a 
judgment by such reasoning, and that an authorita- 
tive revelation of truth ha&been made to him which 
he must accept as he would accept his intuitive 
truths • e. g., a man may, by evidence and a course 
of reasoning from historical and philosophical facts, 
adopt the Bible as a moral and religious authority, 
and the Christian religion as a revelation of truth 
which could not have been a result of human judg- 



So EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

merit, and then accept its statements as truth, even 
where they extend beyond the domain of reason. 

Reason is, therefore, the guide to conviction 
directly by its own processes within its limitations, 
and indirectly, or initiatively beyond its limitations, 
through the revelations of higher agents of percep- 
tion ; it is not infallible, because so often affected by 
imperfect apprehension, incomplete evidence, a 
biassing emotion or affection or desire, or by pre- 
occupation of the mind and judgment ; yet we are 
compelled to follow it in the search for truth ; but 
we should regard with suspicion conclusions which 
do not accord with the common-sense of the race. 
On the other hand, we should never accept the 
judgment of others, where common evidence exists, 
without applying our individual judgment, and draw- 
ing the conclusion of our own reason. We should 
also teach the child to draw its own intellectual and 
moral inferences, where it can safely be led to form 
them correctly and reach true conclusions ; we should 
appeal to his reason at every step, that he may 
acquire the mental habit of perceiving the connec- 
tions of cause and effect, and the motive and result 
of his actions. 

The child naturally proceeds from fact to opinion 



JUDGMENT AND REASON. 8 1 

from experiments to principles; his method is that 
first laid down as the method of nature by Francis 
Bacon, and is called inductive reasoning. Deductive 
reasoning begins with the rule or principle, and is 
founded on the axiom that what is part of the part is 
also part of the whole ; it gives the class distinctions, 
and then draws a conclusion respecting the individ- 
ual. Inductive reasoning is founded on the axiom 
that what is true of every constituent part must be 
true of the whole. It examines a number of 
individuals to discover a general resemblance or 
ground of classification, and reaches the law, or 
principle, by detail. The first begins with a theory, 
and deduces its facts; the second begins with facts, 
and deduces the theory. Modern education pro- 
ceeds by the methods of inductive reasoning, which 
are the natural methods of the developing mind. 

The highest development of the inductive reason- 
ing is exhibited by the discoverer of nature's lawr. 
Newton, who from the fall of an apple discovered tl e 
law of gravitation for the universe ; Franklin, who 
discovered by experiment the laws of electricity; 
Galileo, who came to conclusions regarding the 
shape and motions of the earth ; Leverrier, who dis- 
covered by inductive reasoning an invisible planet; 
6 



82 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

Columbus, who found an unknown world by sailing 
according to the directions of his inductive reason- 
ing, etc., — all these illustrate the power of convic- 
tion reached by reason, which is the most thorough 
and effective use of the intellectual faculties. 

In a train of reasoning, every step will be intui- 
tively perceived as a result of comparison and the 
relation between cause and effect. To comprehend 
and follow a series of steps in reasoning requires 
ability and training, but to originate a true sequence 
and reach a legitimate conclusion which gives cer- 
tainty of conviction where there is no other authority 
or knowledge, requires a superior understanding, and 
combined with imagination, leads to the highest 
results of genius. 

Spencer says : " The actions we call rational are, 
by long-continued repetition, rendered automatic or 
instinctive. Whatever the microscopist places under 
the object-glass is seen inverted and with its right 
and left sides interchanged. All adjustments of the 
stage and all motions of his dissecting instruments 
have to be made in directions opposite to those' 
which the uninitiated eye would dictate. Yet habit 
renders this reversed manipulation as easy as ordi- 
nary manipulation ; it becomes as unnecessary for the 



JUDGMENT AND REASON. &$ 

microscopist to take thought how he shall move his 
hands in the one case as in the other. ... In short, 
many, if not most, of our common daily actions 
(actions every step of which was originally pre- 
ceded by a consciousness of consequences, and was 
therefore rational) have, by perpetual repetition, 
been rendered more or less automatic. The requi- 
site impressions being made on us, the appropriate 
movements follow, without memory, reason, or voli- 
tion coming into play. . . . Beginning with reason- 
ing from particulars to particulars, — familiarly ex- 
hibited by children and domestic animals, — the 
progress to inductive and deductive reasoning is 
similarly unbroken, as well as similarly determined. 
And by the accumulations of experience is also 
determined the advance from narrow generalizations 
to generalizations successively wider and wider. . . . 
Thus it happens that out of savages unable to count 
up to the number of their fingers, and speaking a 
language containing only nouns and verbs, arise at 
length our Newtons and Shakespeares." 



CHAPTER VII. 
TASTE, OR THE SENSE FOR BEAUTY. 

The natural activities of the mind bring pleasur- 
able sensations ; every act of sense perception in a 
healthy condition of body and mind brings a feeling 
of gladness. In the manifestations of the young 
child this connection is very apparent. The babe in 
its mother's arms expresses delight at every new act 
of observation, and it is only when the mind or body 
is too much fatigued and needs rest that its activity 
ceases to produce happiness. A pleasurable excite- 
ment attends every successful effort of apprehension, 
of comparison, and of judgment, and the happiness 
is more permanent and satisfying as the mental ac- 
tivity is more complex and complete. This pleasur- 
able excitement is nature's accompanying stimulus 
to the desire for knowledge, and to the activity of 
the mental powers. It may be regarded as a neces- 
sary condition of attention and study at every period 
of life, and facility in arousing and sustaining it 
a criterion of the power of the teacher; so the 



TASTE, OR THE SENSE FOR BEAUTY. 85 

teacher should regard it, and make it an essential 
accompaniment of his effort to instruct. 

In the perception of color alone we find in a young 
child great enjoyment. The colored ball, which is 
FrcebePs " first gift," ministers to his development. 
In the perception of sound alone the child takes in- 
tense pleasure; light alone gives joy, and noise alone 
arouses delight. We can judge of the beneficial de- 
sign of these accompanying sensations of pleasure 
by contemplating the pain that the same causes pro- 
duce upon a diseased brain or nerves, when every 
ray of light distresses and every sound distracts the 
sensitive nerves. If we allow ourselves to be con- 
fined in utter darkness, we may, on being released, 
have some idea of the joy of seeing light, as the in- 
habitants of the Arctic region make that day a festi- 
val on which the sun reappears after the long night ; 
and if we could be utterly withdrawn from sound, 
which would be more difficult, as sound is more con- 
stant and multifarious than we are at all conscious of 
without careful attention, we should have some idea, 
on being released from such silence, of the delight 
of hearing the faintest vibrations of sound. As the 
mind develops it experiences equal pleasure perhaps 
in motion and form ; and when light color, form, and 



86 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

motion are combined and accompanied by music, 
as in the dance, we have the greatest excitement 
of sense delight ; for when the mind is able to re- 
ceive a number of ideas severally and unitedly, the 
pleasure is greatly enhanced. So, when the sus- 
ceptibility to sound has reached a stage at which it 
perceives gradations in tone and in degree of loud- 
ness and rapidity of succession, it can appreciate the 
most pleasurable excitement of the senses, — that 
produced by music. Finally, when to the eye and 
ear appear not only more complex ideas, but a 
symmetry or harmony of those ideas, the delight is 
vastly accumulated, the perception of beauty or har- 
mony is complete, and the faculty of taste is actively 
engaged. 

This sense for beauty is inherent in the mind, but 
varies greatly in its degree of development in indi- 
viduals and races. The Greeks furnish the type of 
the highest development in the realm of taste ; their 
ideas of form, of grace, and of harmony have be- 
come the ideals of humanity. The Greek mind 
seems to have been peculiarly constituted to per- 
ceive beauty. The soft airs, the hues of land and 
sea, all the natural surroundings of the people, cul- 
tivated this sense ; the unfettered, flowing garments, 



TASTE, OR THE SENSE FOR BEAUTY. 87 

undistorted figures of the human body, free athletic 
development, uncovered forms of children, and bare 
feet and arms of all the people, were constant 
models set before them of beauty and grace ; move- 
ment in all graceful, natural play at the games and 
in the palestra was constantly exhibited to their 
artistic sense. Their motive for art-expression, — 
working for the gods as an act of worship, offering 
their very best in the temples, not for their own 
glory nor for selfish gain, but out of love for divine 
beauty, purity, and truth, and for which they must 
conform their own characters and art to divine ideals, 
— this consecration of art was its great inspiration. 
Ruskin insists that the fountain of growth for taste 
is character, and that art will keep pace in its devel- 
opment with purity and virtue of life. The nation 
which has the purest and simplest ideals of truth, 
which is least corrupt in life and motive, will pro- 
duce the highest models of art ; and as principles of 
rectitude are lost sight of, the sense for beauty and 
its artistic expression deteriorates. 

It is certain that Greek art decayed as the state 
became corrupt ; the feeling and ideal conception 
must first be clean and beautiful, and art be de- 
veloped from the truest moral principle. A few in- 



88 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

dividuals in the history of the race have excelled all 
others in this sense for beauty, and became the re- 
vealers, or law-givers, the standard-makers for the 
world. In almost every activity of the mind, taste 
perhaps more than others, some one race or some 
few individuals develop a phenomenal excellence, 
and give ideas which are accepted by all, because 
they appeal to the common-sense of mankind in that 
direction as the highest reach of the human mind, 
the best interpretation of nature, and worthy of gen- 
eral acceptance as authoritative. Such superiority 
seems to be radically a gift of nature, and makes a 
man a prophet, a master, a discoverer in his realm. 
In such ways the divine truths in science, art, and 
religion come to the mind and soul of mankind, and 
we learn the absolute meaning of grace, beauty, law, 
harmony, and goodness. The faculty for perceiving 
these truths may be developed and strengthened 
from earliest childhood by familiarity with types of 
grace and beauty, and by attention to the form, color, 
and harmory of objects ; also by giving full oppor- 
tunity to the instinct for copying nature, satisfying 
the imitative propensity which is so natural and 
spontaneous in childhood. All of Frcebel's plays 
lead to this, as well as his occupations. Associa- 



TASTE, OR THE SENSE FOR BEAUTY. 89 

tion of ideas of wonder, sublimity, grandeur, and 
fitness is a strong element in the evolution of the 
sense for beauty. Reflection upon the truths sug- 
gested by forms and combinations brings out the 
harmony and unity of their relations ; the perception 
of the symbolism and analogies of nature in all their 
points of correspondence with the things of the spirit, 
brings one to a higher appreciation of their beauty. 
That man enjoys a form of beauty who understands 
most thoroughly its significance as well as the sym- 
metry of its lines ; he discovers most beauty in na- 
ture who perceives all its associated ideas of use, of 
design, of cause and effect, of creative power and 
love, of providence and holiness ; the flower is most 
attractive to one who sees all its symmetry, its mathe- 
matical arrangements of parts, its adaptations to a cen- 
tral purpose, its evidence of divine immanency and 
its fulfilment of divine law, although its color, form, 
texture, and arrangement may at once delight the 
eye. After studying Darwin's exposition of mechan- 
ical contrivance in the orchids to perfect their growth, 
and of the habits of the tendrilled plants to secure 
their necessary conditions, the pleasure we before 
took in their exquisite beauty and grace is increased 
a hundred-fold ; for science ever enlarges our sense 



90 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

of beauty. The starry firmament gives deepest satis- 
faction to the sense for harmony when we understand 
somewhat of its immensity, of its complexity, of its 
order and harmony, of its laws and processes, and all 
its sublime suggestions of eternal power and love. 

So our ideal of beauty is constantly corrected and 
uplifted by education ; we learn to perceive new and 
dominating elements of beauty which lead us to 
truer standards, and to read more truly and fully the 
language of the material universe as an expression 
of the absolute beauty of God. 

Adaptation of any work to its uses or purposes 
ministers to the sense for beauty and gratifies the 
taste. For example, the great Corliss engine, 
which was the motive-power of all the mechanical 
operations in the Centennial Exposition, produced 
the effect on the mind of some great and sublime 
work of nature ; the observer stood awe-struck 
before its power and grace of motion. All in- 
ventions of genius arouse the sense for the sub- 
lime. There is a beauty of moral power and use 
which is seen in noble and harmonious character ; 
we admire a symmetrical life. Novelty and fresh- 
ness of form or combination pleases the taste, 
especially a crude taste ; a more mature sense for 



TASTE, OR THE SENSE FOR BEAUTY. 9 1 

beauty emphasizes harmony and proportion, — the 
general tone or structure, the proper subordination 
of parts to the whole, the proportion, right order, 
sequence, and unity in every direction of art, sculp- 
ture, architecture, music, poetry, etc. The revela- 
tions of science, of the microscope and telescope, 
— every means by which we are led to deeper and 
purer emotions and ideals, — are helps in the growth 
of taste. 

The sense for beauty is as distinctively a human 
faculty as any of the intellectual faculties. It is shown 
in every grade of social advancement. In the bar- 
barian it is displayed in the love of color, of orna- 
ment, of gay apparel for his own person, and for his 
possessions, his tent, his tool, his horse, and in his 
love and sympathy with nature. The ideal of beauty 
may be very imperfect, yet the sense for it is shown 
in the crudest attempts to produce it. In its fullest 
development of ideal and production it makes the 
artist, and through the expression of his skill the 
immortal works of art, in painting, sculpture, archi- 
tecture, music, and poetry. 

The possession by man of this sense for beauty 
discloses to our minds the existence in the universe 
of the good, the true, the beautiful, and the harmoni- 



92 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

ous. Art is but a nearer and nearer approximation 
of the human mincl to the beauty and harmony of 
nature, the law and order of the material universe, 
and the juster and fuller interpretation of the mind 
of God • for nature is but the expression of these 
attributes of the Creator, the eternal types of thought, 
the final standards of beauty. In this view taste is 
the effort of man after the beauty of God, the sym- 
pathetic germ of likeness to the divine harmony. 
A genius for art signifies a discernment of the 
natural elements and laws of beauty, and constitutes 
a man a universal teacher in the principles of art. 
Michael Angelo, in painting, sculpture, and archi- 
tecture, was a universal artist ; others have been as 
great in but one department, as Raphael in painting, 
Phidias in sculpture, Beethoven in music, Shake- 
speare in the drama, Dante in poetry. They each 
discovered and copied the divine pattern of beauty 
in one direction, as Newton discovered the law of 
gravitation. So, even in the direction of lines, there 
has been found a natural pattern of grace called 
the line of beauty. 

The most ignorant, even a child, may admire a 
work of art, though he knows not why. It appeals 
to his instinctive taste. But when he learns the 



TASTE, OR THE SENSE FOR BEAUTY. 93 

secret of its beauty, he comprehends more perfectly 
and analyzes its effects upon him. 

The cultivation of the taste adds to our sensibility 
to both pleasure and pain ; as we are more greatly 
delighted with beauty, so are we more greatly dis- 
turbed by the want of it ; yet we should not, on this 
account, withstand the culture which leads to the 
finer appreciation of perfection. 

We must enter into all the suggestions of the beauty 
which we see or hear if we would enjoy it fully. 
For example, one of Beethoven's sonatas must be 
comprehended in all its design and scope, in all its 
technique and detail, in its balance and proportion, 
in its composition and harmony, and in the true 
interpretation of its unity, if adequately appreciated 
and responded to. Its melody, its harmony, its sig- 
nificance, its wholeness, its contrasts and correspond- 
ences, its order and arrangement, and its sugges- 
tions of feeling and thought, must be studied that 
its entire beauty may be perceived and the taste 
brought up to its demands. Beauty is a very 
powerful influence in the world. Beauty of per- 
son and face has swaved the greatest minds and 
fixed the fate of nations. When the old men of 
Ilium had begun to question the necessity for keep- 



94 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

ing up such a war merely on the issue of a woman's 
beauty, Helen appeared among them in her enchant- 
ing loveliness of face and form, and they were 
at once set to carry on the war, so uncontrollable 
was the influence of her personal beauty. " There 
is nothing," says Addison, " which makes its way 
more directly to the soul than beauty." In every 
operation of taste there is occasion for the exercise 
of judgment. If it be said that the perception of 
beauty is merely a feeling in the mind that perceives, 
we may show that when analyzed it is a judgment 
regarding the conformity of the quality or object we 
observe to our standard of beauty in art or nature. 
The sense for beauty involves an opinion concerning 
some quality in the object that appeals to iv 

The development of taste or evolution of the 
sense for beauty is apparent within the limits of 
type, but there is a chasm between the sensations of 
the brute and those of the human soul that no bridge 
can span, and that involves a new act of creation, a 
superinduced and dominant power that could not 
have sprung into existence except in obedience to 
a divine force of organization, however nearly the 
limits of type approach, and however gradually they 
seem to merge. The point of connection between 



TASTE, OR THE SENSE FOR BEAUTY. 95 

brute sensation and the soul's sense for beauty can 
no more be traced by physiology than the connection 
between body and mind, spirit and matter, can be 
followed by the microscope or the analysis of the 
chemist. Spencer says : — 

" By compounding groups of sensations and ideas, 
there are at length formed those vast aggregations 
which a grand landscape excites and suggests. An 
infant taken into the midst of mountains is totally 
unaffected, but is delighted with the small group of 
attributes and relations presented in a toy. Chil- 
dren can appreciate and be pleased with the more 
complicated relations of household objects and 
localities, — of the garden, field, and street. But it 
is only in youth and mature age, when individual 
things and small assemblages of them have become 
familiar and are automatically cognizable, that those 
immense assemblages which landscapes present can 
be adequately grasped, and the highly integrated 
states of consciousness produced by them experi- 
enced. Then, however, the various minor groups 
of states that have been in earlier days severally pro- 
duced by trees and flowers, by fields and moors and 
rocky wastes, by streams and cascades, by ravines 
and precipices, by blue skies and clouds and storms, 



g6 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

are aroused together. Along with the immediate 
sensation there are partially excited the myriads of 
sensations that in times past have been received 
from objects such as those presented. Further, 
there are partially excited the multitudinous inci- 
dental feelings that were experienced on these many 
past occasions ; and there are also excited certain 
deeper, but now vague, combinations of states which 
were organized in the race during barbarous times, 
when its pleasurable activities were chiefly among 
the woods and waters. And out of all these excita- 
tions, some of them actual, but most of them nas- 
cent, is composed the emotion which a fine landscape 
produces in us." 



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